Sorrowful Jones

Sorrowful Jones (1949), starring Bob Hope and Lucille Ball

Sorrowful Jones is a wonderful movie. Based on a Damon Runyon story, a remake of Shirley Temple’s Little Miss Marker starring Bob Hope as the title character, Sorrowful Jones, a bookie, who receives a young child as a gambler’s marker. The villain of the film, Big Steve Holloway (played by Bruce Cabot) is trying to fix a horse race, and kills the child’s father in order to keep the secret. This leaves Sorrowful Jones to raise the little girl, with help from his ‘former’ girlfriend, played by the wonderful Lucille Ball. Sorrowful Jones has to keep the child safe, stay out of the hands of the villain, and kidnap a horse and smuggle it into the hospital (it makes sense in the film — really). One of the most touching moments in the film is when Sorrowful Jones has to teach the little girl to pray —  truly precious, and the film is highly recommended.

Synopsis of Sorrowful Jones, courtesy of Amazon.com

A young girl is left with the notoriously cheap Sorrowful Jones as a marker for a bet. When her father doesn’t return, he learns that taking care of a child interferes with his free-wheeling lifestyle. Sorrowful must also evade crooked gangsters and indulge in a bit of horse-thieving.